As Pete shoved him gently but firmly toward the door, Marc peered frantically around the room. “George!” he called. “George! Oh, George, for the love of Mike!”
Behind him, Pete’s laugh boomed out in a salvo of noisy mirth. “You’re a card, Mr. Pillsworth!” he howled. “You sure are a card. When it comes time for me to cash in my chips, I hope I’ll have the nerve to crack jokes like that.”
All the way up the trail to the brink of the cliff, Marc had continued to call vainly for George, and the joke, as far as Pete was concerned, was beginning to wear thin.
“Can’t you stop that?” Pete asked. “It kinda gets on a guy’s nerves after a while. If it means so much to you to have that dog around, why don’t you just whistle?”
“I don’t feel like whistling,” Marc said irritably. “I mean George isn’t a dog. He’s . . . a . . .” He glanced over the edge of the cliff, and his legs suddenly turned to sawdust. Yards and yards of nothing at all stretched out endlessly downward. He turned pleadingly to Pete. “Now, listen to reason, Pete. I don’t want to commit suicide. That was all a mistake . . .”
“You told me not to listen when you started talkin’ like that,” Pete said doggedly. “I gotta do the honest thing, Mr. Pillsworth. I gotta bump you off.”
“Do you have to be so honest?” Marc asked desperately. “Don’t you want to get ahead in your chosen profession? Haven’t you any ambition at all? A good crook would automatically go back on his word, just as a matter of principle. Think of your future, Pete. Where’s Marge? She’ll tell you.”
Pete shook his head. “Marge is takin’ it easy back at the lodge. She says we’re goin’ straight, and I’m to do exactly like you said.” He stepped back and motioned toward the edge of the cliff with his gun. “Now, why don’t you save us both a lot of trouble and just step off that there cliff? That way, I won’t have to shoot you off. I’m goin’ to count three, and if you ain’t jumped yet, I’ll shoot.”
“No, Pete!” Marc cried. “No! You don’t under-stand...”
“One.”
Pete took a step forward and Marc edged back a little. He didn’t dare look behind him. The edge of the cliff was only inches away.
“Two.”
Pete advanced again, and Marc nervously sidled to the left. Then a look of hopelessness swept over his face. Closing his eyes, he turned and faced the cliff. Waiting for the final, fatal number, his body was tense as a steel spring.
PETE raised his gun level with Marc’s back and opened his mouth, but neither the gun nor the mouth spoke. Julie, a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand, had suddenly appeared on the clearing at the top of the cliff. At the first glimpse of Marc, poised on the edge of the cliff, she stopped short, her lovely tear-stained face suddenly twisting with horror. Then she closed her eyes and screamed with all her might.
As the noise stabbed through the mountain air, Marc started as though he’d been kicked. Then, clutching his middle in a gesture of mortal pain, he teetered drunkenly on the brink a moment and . . . plunged downward.
Footsteps sounded on the trail, and Dr. Polk, breaking through the clearing, ran breathlessly toward Julie. Reaching her, he placed an enquiring hand on her arm. Julie instantly opened her eyes, stared at the empty space where Marc had been and screamed again. She started to run forward, but the doctor caught her and held her back. She whirled angrily toward Pete.
“Why did you let him do it?” she screamed. “You just stood there!”
Slipping his gun into his pocket, Pete stared at her stupidly. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Seems like he just wanted to do it.”
With a gesture of hopelessness, Julie turned back to the doctor and buried her face in his shoulder. “It was all my fault,” she sobbed. “I drove him to it. And he was sick, too!”
“Julie!”
The voice was from beyond the cliff. Also, it seemed to come from beyond the grave. There was a distant other-world quality about it.
“Marc!” Julie broke away from the doctor and ran swiftly to the edge of the cliff. Kneeling, she peered anxiously over the side. Not more than three yards below, spread eagle over the face of a sloping rock ledge, was Marc. He was clinging tenaciously to a small bush that had grown into the side of the cliff, and his feet were braced securely against the jagged protruding edge of the ledge. Though he could probably have remained there for days without any real danger, his upturned face was filled with undiluted terror.
“Julie,” he cried weakly. “For the love of heaven, get me out of here. I’ve been shot.”
After Dr. Polk and Pete, with the babbling moral support of Julie, had managed to haul Marc back over the edge of the cliff and convince him that he was not riddled with bullets, they left him lying on the ground. Julie knelt beside him and took him in her arms. Pete, after a hasty glance at his resurrected victim, hastily disappeared in the direction of the trail. Probably the apprentice gunman was worried lest Marc demand a refund of the two hundred dollars on the grounds that his services had been incompletely rendered. Dr. Polk, apparently somewhat recovered from his disquieting encounter with Toffee, stood by, observing Marc with unashamed directness.
“It’s all right,” Julie cooed comfortingly. “Everything is going to be all right ... even if you are crazy. I’ll stick by you, darling. You’ll have the loveliest padded cell that money can buy. I’ll take care of you.” She held him a little way out from her. “You mustn’t ever do anything like this again. When I found that note in your room, I nearly went mad myself.”
“Could . . . could I see the note?” Marc asked weakly.
JULIE reached into her pocket and held up a crumpled piece of paper. Her hand had perspired and smeared the writing until it was completely illegible, but there was no doubt that the handwriting was Marc’s . . . or an exact duplicate.
“But we don’t want to see any more of that hateful thing,” Julie said. She crushed the paper into a ball and hurled it over the edge of the cliff. “There, now, that’s all over, that silly business about you killing yourself.” She drew Marc closer to her.
Over Julie’s shoulder, Marc glanced uneasily at the doctor. It seemed this was not quite the time for an observer. But the doctor was no longer interested in the reconciliation. Instead, his gaze was riveted on the trail. Marc’s eyes automatically followed the doctor’s, and the hair at the back of his neck began to bristle. Toffee, her filmy skirts held well above her knees, was running toward the clearing as fast as her decorative legs could carry her. Marc stiffened in Julie’s arms.
“What is it, dear?” Julie asked.
“No . . . nothing,” Marc said faintly. Toffee, by appearing just at this moment, could easily set matters back to where they were in the beginning. Something had to be done . . . quick! Marc’s hand started forward in a gesture of warning, but in moving upward from the ground, it brushed lightly against a rock. And there it stopped.
As Marc’s hand closed over the rock, his eyes clouded with pain. It was the only effective way to get rid of Toffee quickly. It had to be done. His hand moved upward, poised the rock squarely over his head, then quickly released it. Whack! It was a case of pinpoint bombing. Marc slumped in Julie’s arms.
“Oh, dear,” Julie murmured concernedly. “He’s passed out again.” She started to massage Marc’s wrists. Then, noticing the trickle of blood over his left eyebrow, she added another; “Oh, dear!”
“Oh, Lord!” Dr. Polk breathed, and his voice was far more earnest than Julie’s. Staring at the place where Toffee had been, he seemed almost in danger of bolting over the face of the cliff in a fit of terror. “She’s gone!” he cried. “She just melted into nothing!” Avoiding the spot where Toffee had last stood, he edged cautiously toward the trail, and reaching it, broke into a dead run toward the lodge. He ran like a man possessed.
Not conscious of the doctor’s odd behavior, Julie gazed softly into Marc’s unconscious face. “I’ll take care of you,” she whispered. And slowly she lowered her lips to his.
>
BUT in the tranquil valley of his own mind, Marc was concerned with other lips ... the very singular lips of Toffee. One arm still around his neck, Toffee leaned back and smiled.
“Another day,” she sighed happily, “another dilemma. You do live such a rapturous life. Never a sane moment.”
“It has never occurred to you,” Marc said dryly, “that you contribute somewhat to that insanity yourself?”
“Me?” Toffee asked, wide-eyed. “How can you say a thing like that? I’m always the one that has to straighten everything out.”
“I suppose you were on your way to straighten things out when you ran out on the cliff. If Julie had seen you she’d have tossed me over the brink again.”
“I was on my way to save your wretched life,” Toffee replied haughtily. “I cornered Marge back at the lodge and made her tell me the whole story. She thought you were already dead, but I knew you weren’t. If I still existed, you did too. So I ran up there to stop Pete from killing you. Now I get blamed.”
Marc took her hand in his. “You were wonderful,” he said sincerely.
“You bet I was,” Toffee said self-righteously. “It was that fiend, George, that caused all the trouble.”
Marc had almost forgotten the ghost in the excitement of the last half hour. “That demon! First I couldn’t get rid of him, then when I wanted him, he wasn’t anywhere.”
“Of course not. George went back to . . . well, wherever he came from. Remember how he disappeared at the table?” Marc nodded. “Well, George did his swan song right there.”
“What!”
“Sure. Because of that fortune-teller,” Toffee explained. “It was the simplest thing in the world. She said it was written in your hand that you would live a long time. Well, George believed her. And if you were going to live, he had to get going. That’s the rules, and he’s a stickler for the rules. And it’s only natural that George believes in fortunetellers. He’s very superstitious, you know. After all, he’s a ghost, himself, isn’t he?”
“I see,” Marc murmured wonderingly. “Then George is gone for good.”
Toffee nodded and began to laugh. “You remember how that jug lurched about when George disappeared?”
“Uh-huh. What’s so funny about that?”
“George,” Toffee giggled in a fit of hilarity, “tried to take it with him.”
Marc started to laugh too, then stopped. The earth was moving away from under him. Either that, or he was rising lightly in the air. Whichever it was, only he, himself, was affected by the phenomenon, for Toffee remained on the grassy knoll. He reached down toward her, but she only smiled up at him.
“It’s all over,” she called. “Goodbye. It’s been lovely being with you again. Don’t forget me.”
Marc tried to force himself downward, but he couldn’t. His will was too weak against the force that was lifting him. When he stopped trying, he shot upward all the faster. Moving away into the distance, he looked regretfully back at Toffee, a tiny waving figure, now, in the soft loveliness of the valley.
“Goodbye!” he called. “Goodbye!”
Then, looking up, he saw the darkness racing down to meet him. He felt a little sad at leaving Toffee and the valley, and yet it was comforting to know that in a few moments he would be back in Julie’s arms.
THE next morning the sun glinted brightly over the hood of the blue convertible, then flashed against its rear bumper as it left the graveled drive of Sunnygarden Lodge and turned onto the pavement of the highway.
Behind the wheel, Marc, with an impressive-looking bandage over his left eye, glanced uneasily at Julie, who sat rigidly upright in the opposite corner of the seat. Marc wondered how he could reassure her. Probably the truth about Toffee and George would be worse than nothing at all when it came to restoring her confidence. Maybe just some nice, intelligent conversation . . .
“What . . . what happened to that nice fellow, Dr. Polk?” he asked rather stiffly.
“I really don’t know,” Julie said, careful that her gaze remained on the scenery along the road. “He left without a word early yesterday afternoon.”
That took care of that. A heavy tide of silence washed between them and bore the conversational topic of Dr. Polk away, beyond recovery. Marc hummed self-consciously to himself for a moment, then, in desperation reached toward the car radio and switched it on. Presently, a sonorous voice broke dispiritedly through the silence.
“. . . in Europe,” it said. “And now for the news, here at home. Probably the most provocative story of the day concerns the psychiatrist, Horace D. Polk. It seems that Dr. Polk, in a state of acute agitation, turned himself in for psychiatric treatment at his own clinic late last night. The doctor claims that overwork had caused him to be the victim of hallucinations that take the form of scantily clad women who suddenly appear, wink at him, and vanish into thin air. Before being taken into the care of one of his associates, the doctor told newsmen that his patients would be notified that any diagnosis pronounced by him within the last two months should probably be disregarded. He said that such people would be advised to place themselves in the hands of other, reliable doctors until his recovery. Dr. Grimes, a longtime friend and associate of Dr. Polk, stated that the clinic . . .”
Marc quickly turned off the radio, pressing his lips tightly together to hold back the mirth that was bubbling inside. He turned cautiously to Julie. She was looking at him now, and the twinkle that always foreshadowed laughter was in her eyes. Then, she edged closer to him, and suddenly they both began to laugh in the same instant.
Marc’s laughter rang out, clear and unrestrained. Everything was all right again. He reached an arm around Julie and drew her closer. Yes, sir, everything was perfectly all right.
IN A faraway time and space, on a drifting world of vagrant mists and shrouds, five strange figures had drawn together on what appeared to be a shapeless chunk of steam. Reclining in various attitudes of majestic ease, they seemed happily unaware that, by human standards, their physical contours left something to be desired. For reasons known only to themselves two of the party had seen fit to dispense entirely with the customary appendages, and were lounging in armless and legless splendor on their paunchy stomachs. Two others, even less ambitious, manifested only bulbous heads that terminated in trailing vapors. The fifth was merely a torso, or at least, a simulation of what the torso thought a torso should be.
In the foreground, fidgeting guiltily, George stood before them, his head bowed in an attitude of abject contrition.
From one of the five ... it would be difficult to say which under the circumstances ... a low rumb-ling voice issued forth. Really more of a sound than a voice, it seemed to produce only gutteral snorts rather than words. It appeared to be saying:
“Spectre, George Pillsworth, the Council finds much cause for displeasure in your report. It is in fact, severely distressed over the whole matter. It would seem that you have gone to extravagant lengths to make us the laughing stock of all limbo.”
George slowly raised his head. His eyes, the eyes of Marc Pillsworth, looked pained and darkly apprehensive.
“But, my lords,” he pleaded, “what was I to do?”
“Do?” the voice thundered. “You were supposed to haunt the environs of your subject in a business-like and orderly manner, befitting an agent of the High Council. It seems that it was too much to ask. The only mortals you frightened even a little were two office girls who quite rightly mistook you for nothing more than an unscrupulous employer displaying his lower impulses. You may as well know that the Council is considering an action that will remove your ectoplasm credits permanently . . .”
“No!” George cried. “It wasn’t my fault . . . after all, the deceased refused to yield. These mortals can be unreasonable creatures when . . .”
There ensued a short series of rumblings as various anatomical fragments made brief appearances on the steam beds, then as quickly vanished. After an abrupt silence the ominous clearing of a throat sounde
d from a source impossible to ascertain.
“Hmm. Yes . . . There ARE extenuating circumstances . . . for which you may consider yourself fortunate, and hummph, from which we may still be able to salvage some slight measure of respect from our allied departments. Perhaps the blame can be laid at the door of the bookkeeping section, if you . . .”
A tiny gleam of hope crept timidly into George’s eyes as he nodded in vigorous assent. “I have my release,” he offered eagerly, “signed by the section head.”
“But!” the voice resumed, “that does not explain your irresponsible conduct, or the disgraceful affinity you displayed for alcoholic beverages!”
George’s head slumped dejectedly to his chest again, and he stared into the bottomless regions beneath him. Then he started visibly as he noticed that the gaseous substance upon which he was standing was no longer secure beneath his feet. Already, it had grown thin and unsubstantial and he was beginning to sink downward till his legs were obscured almost to the knees. It was apparent that his worst fears were being realized and he was being sent into—
“Wait! My lords! I admit my conduct was con-trary to all the fine traditions of haunting . . . but I’ll never touch a drop again . . . not for a thousand years!”
George’s voice echoed away, and his feet stopped slipping. With another series of low rumblings, the voice spoke again:
“The Council is inclined to accept the penance you have imposed on yourself. There is the proviso, however, that the other departments must receive no inkling of this scandalous affair. Agreed!”
George’s head bobbed up and down in such energetic agreement that it seemed almost in danger of becoming dislodged from his neck.
There was an abrupt sound. A loud clap that may have been thunder. The steam beds expanded, billowed outward, then faded away. From somewhere, it seemed a long way off, a voice was heard to say: “Council dismissed!”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 21